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BIRD BRAIN 1 × 53 min. Written and directed by John Capener and Steve Nicholls Executive producer: Sabine Holzer HD, 5.1 and Stereo SCIENCE
understand about the physical properties or decades, we thought that birds of their tools. were primitive animals, relying on instinct and little else. But recently More recently, researchers studied other we’ve come to realise how wrong bird families, especially parrots. They are famed for being able to talk, but are Fthis idea is. This fi lm explores the very they just pretty feathers with a talent latest research into bird intelligence, for mimicry? Parrot research shows that including research by various international blue-fronted Amazons, Hyacinth and Lear’s universities. macaws can all solve the string-pull test just as well as ravens. The crow family fi rst started to show us how wrong we were about bird minds. For But king of the parrot minds are New some time, ravens have amazed scientists Zealand’s keas. These mountain parrots with their sharp thinking. They quickly not only complete the simple string- mastered a puzzle called the string-pull pull test, but solve it with extra strings test, where food hangs from a branch on a arranged to complicate the puzzle. length of string. Ravens fi nished it quickly, Researchers from the University of without any trial and error, showing that Vienna have given their keas several new they solved the problem in their minds. tests — from problem solving to co-opera- Since then, research on other members of tive tasks, even starting to test their basic the crow family has revealed even more understanding of grammar. sophisticated thinking. Research by the Konrad Lorenz Institute Rooks form large social fl ocks, sometimes shows how ravens bury a useless object, numbering in tens of thousands. Social such as a toy, in front of an observer to interactions could have contributed to the see what they do. If the observer steals evolution of intelligence in apes, so that the toy, then the raven remembers scientists ask if the same is true in birds. and changes its future hiding strategy Rooks’ social interactions have revealed when it has something valuable to hide. hierarchies and relationships surprisingly Understanding another mind and charac- similar to those in monkeys or apes. ter shows the ravens’ ability to imagine
different viewpoint — an ability as sophisti- The crow family has also shown another cated as that of any ape. sophisticated ability — tool use. New Caledonian crows not only use tools, but Perhaps now, ‘bird brain’ is no longer an also make tools for specifi c jobs. Ongoing insult — but rather a compliment … research by Oxford University and the Max Plank Institute is testing what the birds
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